Trash This Temple
Lasse Marhaug 24h
“You have to break things down to build something new” – Lasse Marhaug on noise
Noise does not resolve. It does not lead you anywhere, offer a melody to hold onto, or reward patience with a payoff. It pushes against you, refuses to make sense. As a genre, it has been many things: provocation, community, philosophy of listening. Noise challenges the idea that sound should be beautiful, legible, or easy. What it demands, above all, is time and presence — and both are at stake here.
Over the course of a full day and night, Lasse Marhaug will move through a sweeping survey of his career as one of Norway's most uncompromising noise artists.
For 24 hours, Marhaug does not stop.
Each section of the concert draws on a different method from his practice: turntable collage, harsh electronics, drones, cassette loops, multichannel field recordings, and analogue oscillators. The audience can come and go, stay for a while, or sleep through the night. The music can be brutal, fragile, precise, open, physical, slow, funny, beautiful and disturbing — sometimes all at once.
Store Studio at NRK is where these 24 hours will unfold, and the choice is not accidental. As a child, Marhaug visited the building and was struck by what he found. More than the physical space, it was the radio itself that mattered. A broadcaster that took his unusual musical interests seriously, gave airtime to music few knew existed, and told him, without quite saying so, that his way of hearing the world was legitimate.
That debt is repaid at volume.
NB. For those who do not live in Oslo: the entire 24-hour performance will be broadcast live on NRK Jazz.
Programme
Saturday September 12
16:00 – 20:00 The Complete History of Sound
Full palette live electronics.
20:00 – 22:00 Trash This Temple
Electronic multi-channel piece.
22:00 – 24:00 Scratching the Surface Part 1
Vinyl turntable collage music.
Sunday September 13
00:00 – 02:00 Digital Damage
Early 2000’s era laptop music with 3 x old MacBooks.
02:00 – 06:00 The Navigator’s Dream of 1974
Late-night ambient soundscapes.
06:00 – 07:00 Prepared and Extended
Prepared objects and home-made electronics on table-top speakers.
07:00 – 08:00 Looks Good on Paper
Musique Concrète based on the sound of paper.
08:00 – 09:00 So the Wind Won’t Blow It All Away
Multi-channel piece based on field recordings from the Arctic.
09:00 – 10:00 Teenage Tape Diaries
Multi-channel piece based on archival 1990’s cassette tape recordings.
10:00 – 12:00 Scratching the Surface Part 2
Vinyl turntable collage music.
12:00 – 13:00 Different Every Time
Destroyed electronics and broken anti-music.
13:00 – 14:00 Pulse, Torn Maps and a Quiet Revolution
Rhythmic drum-machine fuelled monotony.
14:00 – 15:00 The Fourth Wave
Long-form drone minimalism.
15:00 – 16:00 No Beginning No End
Bass/guitar amp driven audio pressure.
NB. Parts of the concert may get loud, but we have you covered. Earplugs will be available at the venue.
Want to know more?
- Noise emerged in the 1970s and 80s at the edges of industrial music, free improvisation and the avant-garde, with strong currents in Japan, the USA and the UK. Norway has its own lineage, and Marhaug is at its centre, his practice spanning noise, metal, jazz, film, theatre and installation.
- Marhaug has cited The Clock by Christian Marclay — a 24-hour film assembled from thousands of movie clips, each showing the real time — as a key inspiration for the format of this project.
- The nocturnal section The Navigator's Dream of 1974 runs from 2 to 6 AM. Audience members are welcome to bring sleeping bags and listen lying down.
- Ultima's noise focus in 2026 also includes concerts with Merzbow, Violeta Garcia, Nina Garcia & Anna Gaïotti, Øyvind Mæland, Agnes Hvizdalek and Yann Leguay.
Lasse Marhaug. Photo: Kristian Skylstad
Lasse Marhaug. Photo: Kristian Skylstad
Lasse Marhaug. Photo: Kristian Skylstad
Supported by
- Arts Council Norway
- Sparebankstiftelsen DNB
Produced by
- NRK Jazz
- Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music Festival
